


get up and change the light

by magicandlight



Series: The States [20]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Statetalia
Genre: (it's SC), And It's Not Like. Real Murder, Angst and Humor, But just a little, Civil War, Gen, Jackson/the Confederacy is his own warning, Morally Ambiguous Character, South Carolina Centric, some light murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: Daniel can be intense. He's charming and he speaks well and he practically drips passion.And, most importantly, he hates being told what to do.
Relationships: Georgia & North Carolina & South Carolina (Hetalia), Some Mild Louisiana/South Carolina, but like SC is an idiot and doesn't realize that LA is hitting on him and he's kind of flirting back
Series: The States [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/788712
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	get up and change the light

Daniel can be intense. He's charming and he speaks well and he practically drips passion. 

And, most importantly, he hates being told what to do. 

༨

“It’s the principal of the matter,” Daniel tells his siblings.

David frowns. “But secession? Daniel-”

Daniel cuts him off. “I won’t let them tell me what I can and can’t do!”

David doesn’t respond, just keeps that same pensive look on his face. 

༨

If his hands shake when he writes the notice of secession, Daniel ignores it.

༨

Will punches him and they fight until Scott grabs Will and shoves him towards Brooke, and Scarlett and David join Daniel.

Scarlett's hands are balled into fists, and it doesn't matter if she's in a hoop skirt and dress, she's willing to fight them all, right then and there.

It still hurts when Del looks him in the eyes and tells him to get out.

༨

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Drew and Josh and Flora weren’t supposed to follow, bound to his mistakes by the will of the people. 

Jackson isn’t supposed to happen.

༨

If Daniel had stopped to think about the formation of a new nation, he would have assumed that he would take that role. Personifications are flexible, after all. They don't always remain what they started as. America himself began as a single settlement, after all. 

But he hadn’t even thought about how they were forming a new nation, of the possibility another personification would be formed.

Drew, Josh, and Flora are all looking between him and the brand new nation standing before them. Daniel is the oldest, so they look at him.

Daniel feels a twist of wrongness in his stomach. When personifications were formed, they were always relatively young, always in those white nightgowns.

The Confederacy is the same age as the once-states that stand in front of him. He's dressed in likely stolen trousers and a loose shirt. He looks unsettlingly like Alfred. The hair is darker, less wheat-gold and more a dusty blonde with tints of red. The eyes are different too, a darker grey-blue like the Atlantic instead of bright cerulean. The jaw is the same, and so are the mouth and nose. Alfred, without the Pacific, without the shining wheatfields of the Great Plains. 

The Confederacy is looking them over assessingly. Flora is still in a way that says this is ingrained into her mind, head slightly tilted down and shoulders pulled in, everything to make her seem smaller.

Something flickers in the Confederacy's eyes when he looks at Drew before he turns away.

The Confederacy holds his hand out to Daniel. 

Daniel takes it, and the Confederacy smiles before he shakes his hand.

"The Confederate States of America," Here he pauses, before finally: "You can call me Jackson."

༨

There are state houses scattered across the country, that way Alfred could raise territories close to their own borders. Some of them now belong to the state where the house is built by de facto, but others are just empty. 

The state house in Montgomery falls into the latter category, since Josh preferred Birmingham. 

Everything is covered in sheets and dust, and walking through the house is an unwanted trip down memory lane. There had only been twenty-eight of them when Alfred bought this house. 

This is all before Flora’s time, so she’s the least affected, but even she pauses when they unearth something from one of the northerners. 

And this is where Daniel starts to feel wary of Jackson because after everything, he gathers all those abandoned belongings- rag dolls from Cassidy’s childhood, the crib that Caleb had slept in, dresses Cordelia had outgrown in months- and he burns them. 

The fire is still smoking when Scarlett arrives. 

༨

Scarlett is his little sister. 

David is his twin and they both considered Tim a brother, had even given him their name, but Scarlett is his _little sister._

David and he had found her on the edge of his border, small and fierce with her red hair and freckled fists that she had put on her hips when she held her head high and said her name was Georgia.

 _She's his little sister._ He used to steal ribbons for her hair when he could.

Jackson is looking at her slowly. His gaze lingers on her for too long and Daniel's jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists. _This is wrong_ , he thinks. _Alfred would never_ \- He chokes that thought off.

Maybe he’s imagining it. 

Yes. Daniel has been known to overreact, to see things that aren’t there.

It’s fine. Scarlett is fine. Jackson is fine. Everything is _fine_. 

༨

Evangeline secedes seven days later, and Daniel tells himself that he’s imagining the way Jackson had sneered for a moment before shaking her hand, too. 

༨

He convinces them, because that is what he’s good at. He isn’t persuasive like Evangeline or charismatic like Cass, but he doesn’t need to be. Elizabeth and David haven’t seceded yet, but it’s okay. 

“We have a right to decide things for ourselves, don’t we? Isn’t that our constitutional right as states?” He says when Evangeline begins to argue, and she stops. 

༨

Elizabeth joins them in the wake of Fort Sumter, and it’s a relief for a moment before Jackson opens his mouth. 

"Where is your twin?" He throws out curiously and Elizabeth freezes dead in her tracks.

Daniel looks around, but everyone else's faces say the same thing.

No one had told him that Virginia was not one girl, but a pair of twins.

Which means he had known.

Daniel thinks about how Jackson had never needed to ask for any names. How he'd known them.

Daniel had assumed he'd learned them by listening to them talk to each other.

Realization coils up in his stomach, a sick, heavy weight.

༨

And then David joins, and everything falls completely apart in his hands. 

David has always been the more observant one. Of course, he sees how Jackson looks at Scarlett, and unlike Daniel, he doesn’t waste time trying to deny it. 

༨

Jackson brushes some of Scarlett's hair away from her face, hand lingering.

Scarlett shrinks away, and Daniel’s mouth tastes bitter. 

_Do something do anything just do something-_

_Snap_.

Daniel tears his gaze away, glancing around the room for the source of the sound.

His eyes land on his twin, on the black ink smeared over his hands and the broken pen.

David's mouth is drawn, eyes burning with endless anger as he watches Scarlett.

༨

"How long has that been happening." David gets out between gritted teeth.

Daniel can't meet his twin's eyes.

His silence is answer enough.

David leaves.

༨

David doesn't speak to him unless it's necessary, and the loss aches.

༨

Daniel doesn't realize how much Evangeline and Drew's very presences infuriate Jackson until Evangeline questions his authority for the first time.

The slap seems to echo through the room.

Evangeline lays where she fell, a hand held to her cheek in shock.

Fury burns away all reason and Daniel tenses, prepared to step in between them.

Elizabeth grabs his arm, holding him at his place at the table.

When he glances down at her, Elizabeth's face is pale, lips drawn into a thin line.

Evangeline's shock fades, replaced by icy rage. Her face smooths out into a calm facade and she meets Jackson's gaze.

"Elizabeth isn't the only one here with empire blood thrumming in her veins and I never forget, Jackson."

She stands, head held high and spine straight, a girl made by an empire at its strongest.

Evangeline walks away.

༨

Everything is falling apart so fast.

Elizabeth's letters are returned unopened and Tim's first life is gone, and then so is the second and third and fourth and then they stop counting. Daniel stops for a moment and realizes he hasn't talked to his siblings in days. He becomes state leader alongside Elizabeth, and it feels more like a punishment than an honor. 

༨

“Elizabeth, what have I done?” Daniel breathes out in a rush, dropping his head into his hands. It’s been a rough day, hell, a rough month. Caleb’s governor had declared secession, but Caleb hadn’t joined them and that infuriated Jackson. He’d been in a rage for days over it, violent and meaner than usual. 

“What have _we_ done,” Elizabeth corrects, eyes blank as death as she stares at the map. 

They look at each other. Elizabeth looks away first. 

“I don’t like it, you know?” Elizabeth says, softly, afraid that someone would hear her, maybe. “I think it’s a cruel practice, but- there’s nothing I can really do about it. I can’t vote, as Virginia, and I couldn’t vote even if I wasn’t-” 

“Because you’re a girl,” Daniel says offhandedly, frowning. “I don’t see why we _can’t_ vote.”

“Washington said we were too politically divided to vote, and that it wasn’t like we were... people... anyway. And Jefferson agreed with him,” Elizabeth answers, lacking the pride she once had when she talked about them. 

Daniel wonders if Elizabeth ever realized that the way Jefferson had looked at her wasn’t entirely familial, or the way citizens looked at their personification. If she’d ever realized that she was the same age as that Hemmings girl, that Jefferson made excuses to touch her, or if Elizabeth hadn’t wanted to see it. 

If she hasn’t, he won’t be the one to tell her. If she has, then it won’t do to remind her of something she doesn’t want to speak of. Better to let her remember him as good, he supposes, than to speak ill of the dead. 

Besides that, it isn’t his place to say what was and wasn’t proper, to point fingers at a dead man, especially another state’s founding father. Plus, he could be wrong. Daniel isn’t exactly known for being able to read humans easily, and David or Tim had never mentioned that they found anything about Jefferson sketchy. 

Founding fathers made Daniel twitchy and paranoid, though he had to admit he was biased. The last time Daniel had dared to question the so-called institutions that had made his economy strong in front of a human had been back when the constitution was being written, and it had gotten him slapped so hard he fell into a wall and kicked out the meeting to boot. They were glorified now that few were alive to remember them, but Daniel distinctly remembered Madison’s stepson damn near breaking Wes’s hand and Madison forcing Wes to accept the half-hearted apology. 

“I hate this,” Elizabeth says, suddenly, jarring him from his memories. “God, I wish this was easier. We- I don’t think we’re on the right side-”

She cuts herself off at the sound of footsteps, both of them looking at each other with panic as Jackson appears in the doorway. 

He frowns at the sight of them, and for a moment Daniel is sure he’s heard them. “Virginia, South, it’s rather late, don’t you think?”

“Just discussing strategy, sir,” Daniel says smoothly when Elizabeth looks like she’ll be sick. 

Jackson nods, granting them a brief smile. “Good soldiers, the pair of you are.”

Neither he nor Elizabeth sleep that night, even after Jackson leaves them. 

༨

"Scarlett's sleeping with her cavalry sword on her nightstand." David says quietly. He doesn't look up, just keeps looking at the maps. There's a new scar over the back of his hand, and the fact that Daniel doesn't know what it's from says something about how far they have grown apart.

Daniel sighs and runs a hand through his hair, leaning back in his chair. "I'm worried about her."

David just nods, and Daniel thinks bitterly that even if everything else between them is ruined, they’ll still both worry about Scarlett.

༨

Sometimes Daniel thinks the ever-increasing pressure of being a state leader is going to break his ribs and suffocate him.

And then there are days like today, when he thinks it already has. 

Drew is half dressed when Daniel goes to ask about the papers and he freezes in the doorway. 

Daniel doesn't know what he's looking at for a moment, until the pattern of scarring clicks and he realizes there's a brand burned into Drew's shoulder. 

The initials have healed if they were ever there, but fate has a cruel sense of humor and left the heart insignia to scar over.

The brand disappears as Drew yanks his shirt over his head.

Daniel is speechless.

"I was a conductor, once. Got caught. It's why I went to live with Ev." Drew says, sentences short and clipped, discouraging any questioning on the matter.

He hadn't known. 

It seems to be a common theme these days.

༨

Daniel dies and wakes up with Scarlett's arm draped over him from where she presumably fell asleep waiting for him to come back. 

It was a tradition that if one of them died, the other two would wait for them to come back.

Daniel’s throat feels suffocatingly tight at the realization that David wasn’t waiting too. 

The door creaks as it opens, and Daniel's head turns toward the noise on reflex. 

David raises his eyebrows, the quilt Ginny had made for his eighth statehood thrown over his head like a cloak. "You thought I just left you two alone?" 

Daniel isn't used to David sounding hurt. He can't even deny it, because that was exactly what he thought. 

David drops onto the bed beside him. "I wouldn't do that."

༨

There's a shout in the dining room before there is silence, and Daniel freezes at the top of the stairs before continuing down them, avoiding the spots that creak. He pauses at the landing, leaning over the railing.

He almost smiles at the sight of the rapier in Evangeline's hand.

It isn't the dulled practice blade she spars Ginny with.

This is a real rapier, razor-sharp and deadly, and Evangeline has it pressed to Jackson's exposed throat.

Tim and Josh are frozen in the doorway. Neither interferes, because a cornered state is a dangerous thing.

Evangeline's smile is as razor-sharp and deadly as her blade. "Hit me if you like. I warned you already. But touch Andrew again and I will gut you like a pig."

Jackson manages to smile back despite the blade pressed to his throat. "I wouldn't doubt it, Evangeline."

Evangeline dips her head in recognition that she has made a deal with the devil.

The rapier is away from Jackson's neck and held loosely at Evangeline's side again.

She doesn't put her back to Jackson as she leaves.

She doesn’t look at Daniel when she passes him on the stairs. 

༨

David is off the second he sees Jackson, and Daniel follows without hesitation because if Jackson's back then Scarlett is too-

“Scarlett!" Daniel shouts when he sees her, and then softer, as he catches sight of where Scarlett and David had paused. "Scarlett?"

Daniel joins them at the foot of the stairs. The world becomes a kaleidoscope of rage and guilt and pain and the unsettling realization that he can't do anything at the sight of the dark bruise marring Scarlett's face. 

Her eye, swollen half-shut. Her bottom lip split at the corner.

"Scarlett?" David breathes out. "Did he-"

Daniel's head snaps towards David, horrified by the suggestion. 

Scarlett shakes her head. "He just slapped me." She closes her eyes as best she can with one swelling. "There was a boy- a soldier- I was taking his pain but he died anyway- and when Jackson tried to take me away I bit him and he-" She gestures helplessly at her face. 

The world goes red with his anger for a second before Daniel forces himself to exhale slowly. “Come on, Scarlett, I can clean this up for you.”

༨

“Are you happy?” David bites when Scarlett has left Daniel’s room to go back to her own for the night. 

Daniel glares at him. “Of course, I’m not _happy_ , Scarlett-”

“I mean, you seemed pretty content to let her deal with it on her own _before_ -”

“This isn't what I wanted!” Daniel yells, voice breaking. 

David whirls to face him. “What the fuck did you think was going to happen? You let him go unchecked for too long! And now _our sister is paying the price!_ ”

David stops, practically shaking with anger. “He _hit_ her.” His voice breaks into something raw. “She’s so _scared_ all the time." 

Daniel swallows. “I know. I _know_.”

༨

Tim sits on the steps of the back porch, presumably cleaning his rifle, but in reality the gun is lying in pieces beside him, abandoned, as Tim stares blankly into the forest. 

“Are you alright, kid?”

Daniel can’t even recall how many deaths Tim is at, just knows it’s a terrible number. It has to weigh on him horribly.

Tim side eyes him when he sits down next to him. “Peachy,” Tim responds, sarcastically chipper.

“Are you mad at me?”

Tim actually rolls his eyes at him, beginning to pile the pieces of his rifle onto an oil-stained towel. “Nah. I’m not mad that you have daddy issues and threw a tantrum so messy it dragged us into a war, of course not.”

Daniel draws back, shocked by the venom in Tim’s voice. “Timothy Love _lace_ -”

“Don’t you _fullname me_ , Daniel.” Tim shouts back as he goes back inside, and Daniel just stares after him helplessly. 

༨

The door of the room Jackson had claimed as his office isn’t closed all the way, and that’s the only reason he hears it. 

"I'm willing to make a deal with you."

Daniel freezes. Elizabeth wouldn’t-

"Leave them alone, all of them, and you can do whatever you like with me."

"Whatever I like?"

The silence stretches painfully long, and Daniel claps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from making a sound.

If this is- he can’t. He can’t allow her to do this. He can’t stand here and just- listen. 

"What makes you think that I couldn't just take whatever I wanted?" Jackson says quietly. 

"No deal, Virginia."

Daniel leaves before Elizabeth comes out, and spends an hour in the bathroom convincing himself not to throw up. 

༨

He keeps a wary eye on Elizabeth, on the battle of wits between her and Jackson. He can’t think of how to tell the others, or even decide who should be told, so he just plants seeds of suspicion. Mentions to David that it’s weird how Jackson tries to talk to Liz alone so much, tells Austin that he should keep a watch out for Jackson around the girls, asks Caden to stick next to Elizabeth. 

He tries to make things easier for her. When she asks to put a sigil on him, he lets her and makes David go along with it. He silently begins taking work from her stack instead, taking her place in tedious responsibilities. 

Daniel isn’t sure if it’s enough. 

༨

"Lincoln's made abolition a war goal," Daniel says tiredly, practically falling on the couch beside Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth sighs. 

"What do you see in outcomes?"

Daniel frowns, tapping his fingers against the arm of the couch. "It's complicated. Every battle changes things and I can't always see why something goes a specific way. If you want probability for an outcome, you'll have to talk to David, though he can usually only tell you what not to do."

It doesn’t make for pleasant dreams. It’s bad enough that he almost relishes the nights he’s too injured or tired to dream, the brief patches of undisturbed unconsciousness. He doesn’t know if David is having the same problem or not, since his gift is a little different. 

Elizabeth nods, thinking. 

"There's not a lot of good possibilities," Daniel warns her quietly.

Elizabeth shoots him a wry look. "Don't need precognition to see that." 

༨

It’s so _easy_ to forget that Tim’s talent is one of the more powerful ones, up on the scale with Evangeline’s.

It’s easy to forget that Tim got his talent young, to forget that he once broke half the ornaments on the Christmas tree by crying, to forget about the windows and glasses that would shatter every time he screamed. 

To this day Cass didn’t have control over her talent, but Tim had to learn control before he was in the double digits. 

So when Jackson idly says a slur at Tim during breakfast and Daniel’s ears start ringing, he knows this isn’t going to end well. 

"Is that all you've got?" Tim tilts his head, affecting a disinterested expression that’s negated by the anger in his eyes. "I've heard better from farm boys and congressmen, come on."

"Tim-" Scarlett begins, a little of her own talent laced in it. The ringing gets louder, and the glass on the table starts to shake. 

" _No_ ,” Tim bites, “He wants to say that to me, he can damn well do a better job of it." 

Jackson lunges across the table. 

Daniel moves. 

Tim’s fist connects with Jackson's jaw with an audible pop just before Daniel and David shove him back. Austin and Caden grab him, holding him back from lunging again. 

Half the glasses on the table shatter, and then the ringing stops. 

Tim looks at Daniel, then David. The betrayal on his face couldn’t be clearer if the word was written on his face. 

"Don't fucking call me that," Tim says finally, and then he's shoving his way out of the room. 

༨

“I hate you sometimes,” Evangeline says late one night after everyone else has left, as easily as if she was talking about the weather. “You’re a real asshole, you know? For this and other things. You’re selfish and insensitive and you don’t give a damn about anyone that doesn’t have your last name. You’d burn the rest of us for them and we all know it, but god forbid one of those three need your help because you won’t help them either.”

Daniel opens his mouth to say _that’s not true_ , but isn’t it? Hadn’t he taken away any illusion of choice David had in secession? Hadn’t he allowed Scarlett to suffer in silence for the sake of not making waves? Hadn’t he left Tim to defend himself?

“You’re a bystander,” Evangeline continues, and it feels like being damned. “Did you ever think, maybe, that it’s wrong, that lives are worth less than what they can produce? That we value an entire race of people as nothing more than livestock?”

“Evangeline, I don’t-”

She doesn’t pause for him to speak. The soft, familiar southern lilt to Evangeline’s voice has faded in the face of her anger, falling back into something that resembles a French accent. “No, you probably haven’t. You benefit from this system, I guess, just as we all do, but unlike the rest of us you’re still trying to say we're here to fight for states’ rights rather than admit we’re defending one of the vilest institutions in history. I am black! I can’t change that! And I’m not going to pretend like I am any different than them just because I am a state. Jackson hates me because I am black, he hates Drew because Drew is black, he doesn’t like Tim because Tim is gay, it doesn’t matter to him that these are factors we can’t _change!_ ”

Evangeline stops to collect herself, having slightly fallen off-topic at the end, and then exhales heavily. “There’s limits to what we can and can’t do, I know, it’s dangerous to act, but you can’t just sit here and wait for someone else to handle it. That won’t help. Not choosing a side _is_ choosing a side.”

Daniel goes to respond, but Evangeline just holds up her hand. “Not right now, Daniel. I’ll- see you tomorrow I guess. Good night.”

“Night, Evangeline.”

༨

He has to ask Caden what Evangeline’s favorite candy is, but eventually he manages to get his hands on a small box of coconut caramels. 

She squints her eyes at him suspiciously when he gives them to her. 

“I’m sorry,” Daniel tells her, as sincere as he can manage. “And depending on some… independent factors, I might need your help with something.”

༨

Daniel closes his eyes and exhales slowly. “Elizabeth?”

“Yes?”

“I'm going to do something very stupid and incredibly terrible.” 

Elizabeth looks at him, worried. “You’re _what?_ ”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll go fine.”

“Daniel!”

༨

“Evangeline, stay for a moment, please,” Daniel calls before she can leave. David gives him a questioning look, but Daniel just shrugs, gesturing for him to go on ahead. 

He waits for the others to leave before he begins.

“Evangeline, hypothetically,” she glances at him sharply and Daniel flashes a grin at her before schooling his face back to blank curiosity. “Hypothetically, how would you, personally, go about killing a nation? Permanently.”

Evangeline smiles, and Daniel is extremely glad that her more morally questionable actions aren’t directed at him. 

“Well, you see, _hypothetically_ , of course-”

༨

It’s rather difficult to kill a personification, but there are different ways, they decide. 

The first is the most obvious: you kill them. They die just like humans, after all. They just don’t stay dead. Sure, you can just keep killing them, but who has the time for that?

The second is a complete degradation of everything they are. If a nation has no people, no culture, no land, they fade. If no one remembers them, they fall through the cracks. Sometimes capturing and burning a capital is enough to do the trick, but sometimes it takes more. 

The third is through succession. A younger, stronger personification sometimes spells doom for another, the way the Italians had doomed Rome, Greece had doomed his mother. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The fourth is something not talked about, because it doesn’t always hold true. It’s the reason Connie had stolen her charter before it could be reclaimed, why Sam and Cameron shuddered to think about their three years as the Dominion of New England. Her charter was useless now that Connie’s a state, but when Connie was a colony? Something uncertain and weak? It was a symbol of everything she was. Making that charter null and void would have weakened her significantly. It _had_ weakened Cameron and Sam significantly. 

Weakened them to say, a killable extent. Maybe not a human extent, but maybe enough that if perhaps, a nation, one that was _older_ and was objectively _stronger_ , killed them, they would have died. 

Permanently, if the circumstances were right. 

Hypothetically, of course. 

༨

They lose at Gettysburg, and that’s when it stops being a contingency plan, and starts looking more like a reality. 

༨

Daniel smiles, a picture-perfect southern gentleman, and lets his accent thicken, just a bit. “May I have the first draft of the Constitution, Mr. Cobb? For sentimental purposes.”

༨

“Josh, you wouldn’t happen to know what happened to that first flag, would you?”

༨

“Elizabeth, would you mind terribly finding all the new statehood acceptances for me? I think I need them for this paperwork.”

༨

“Daniel…” Evangeline trails off when he dumps the contents of the box on his bed. A flag, a constitution, statehood papers no one really wanted to keep.

“They’re symbols. The first ones.” Daniel begins, trying to reign in his intensity, just a little. “What is a personification if not a symbol? If we lose, then Alfred will kill him, we’d just have to make sure it sticks. Destroy the symbols and cut all the strings.”

Evangeline folds her arms over her stomach uncertainly. “And if we win?”

Daniel stops fidgeting. “Then I’m going to do it.”

Evangeline looks at him sharply. “Daniel-”

“Look, I was the first. This- this is my fault. If it comes down to it, I’ll do it.”

༨

They don’t tell anyone about the box under Daniel’s bed, a pack of matches tossed in with the items for easy access. Part of it is that they don’t know if it will work. The other part is so that no one else has to carry that weight. 

Daniel and Evangeline have always been a little morally grey. The others? Not so much.

༨

Tim sets the papers down meaningly, and Daniel shoots him a baffled look, flipping through to make sure he’s signed them.

And he has. 

Daniel stops, staring at the signature. 

But where it would have said Timothy _Lovelace_ , it says Timothy _Avery_ instead. 

“You changed your name?” Daniel says softly, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. 

Tim just looks at him steadily. “I thought it was time for a change.”

༨

Evangeline knocks on his door, and he already knows before he even opens it that she’s leaving. Benefits of precognition. He's known since she decided a few days ago. 

He lets her in without a word, looking out to make sure no one saw her with her knapsack before he closes the door. 

“You have to be patient with it,” Evangeline tells him. “Wait for the right moment, alright? Everything in as quick succession as possible.”

Daniel nods. “I think I’ll wait for Alfred, if possible. We don’t even have to lose the battle, as long as Alfred kills him.”

“Maybe that would be enough, just Alfred.”

Daniel shakes his head. “We might as well try and stack the odds in our favor if possible.”

“Right.”

Evangeline just looks at him for a moment, and then she kisses him, so briefly he doesn’t even get a chance to close his eyes. 

“See you on the other side of the war, Daniel,” she tells him, and then she’s gone. 

༨

When Jackson predictably throws a fit over breakfast, David just gives him that bored, insolent expression, the one that used to get him in trouble during the revolution. 

Daniel closes his eyes. _Please, please, just this once, keep your mouth shut, David._

If David sees the quiet pleading in his twin's eyes, he ignores it. 

Jackson's on the verge of calm when he asks if anyone knew.

David sets his glass down on the table. "I did."

Jackson goes dangerously still. "What."

"I was awake when she left. I gave her my pistol in case she ran into trouble on the way. She's handy with that rapier, but it isn't the most practical of weapons," Any other target, and Daniel might have been proud of his twin’s sarcasm. 

Jackson moves toward David, and suddenly Scarlett is there, a knife in hand. 

Jackson goes still again, surprised and a little wary.

It’s easy to look at Scarlett and her dresses and think they’ll slow her down. The truth is that Scarlett’s always fast, and her clothes haven’t slowed her down since hoopskirts became the fashion. 

Scarlett adjusts her grip.

Daniel begins calculating how much damage Scarlett can do with a table knife. 

The calculations aren't pretty.

Daniel had once thought of Jackson like a rattlesnake, unpredictable and deadly when provoked. Rattlesnakes were death wearing scales, and Scarlett is death in a debutante dress and bandages. Scarlett is one-part Southern Belle and one-part soldier. She's soft curves and a softer smile tempered with calloused hands and a spine made of steel.

Frankly, the chances of survival are better with the rattlesnake. 

"Touch my brother and I'll kill you." 

She's stone-cold serious. Daniel meets his brother's eyes. Silently, they come to an agreement: Jackson moves towards Scarlett and he's dead. 

On the other side of the table, Austin is idly rolling up his sleeves, and Tim’s hand is resting on top of another table knife. Elizabeth has sat up straighter, just as ready to get between Scarlett and Jackson as the twins are. 

Jackson steps back. 

It’s one of the few times Jackson makes the smart choice. 

༨

“I don’t understand. Was it like a goodbye kiss?” Daniel asks later, lying on Elizabeth’s bed. Caden’s off on the front for a bit, and Daniel is seriously considering either falling asleep on her bed or at least pretending to, just so she’s not alone. 

Elizabeth just stares at him. 

She closes her eyes. “I don’t get paid enough for any of this,” she says quietly.

Daniel waves his hand. “You don’t get paid at all.”

Elizabeth looks at him. 

Daniel props himself up on his elbows to actually look at her. “Wait, you’re getting paid? How much? I’m not getting paid? Am I supposed to be getting paid?”

“We’re soldiers and government employees, of course, we’re supposed to be getting _paid_ -”

༨

Death hangs around Elizabeth like an invisible shroud. Daniel sits quietly in his anger and bides his time. 

༨

Elizabeth begins spending more time on the front lines, so Daniel tries to ease her mind. He lets the others pretty much go fight whenever they feel like while he stays to watch whoever remains. The front lines feel a lot safer than anywhere near Jackson, especially after Drew leaves as soon spring begins. 

It’s not enough, but it’s all Daniel can manage for the moment. 

༨

Tim comes back from the battle of Fort Pillow with Jackson with the blankest expression Daniel’s ever seen. There isn’t anger under it like Daniel would expect, just the terrible, awful blankness. 

He leaves that night to run off to his border, and when the reports start rolling in, about no quarter and massacres, Daniel doesn’t blame him. 

༨

He sees the mess that’s been made of Jackson’s hands and knows only one state with the rage and skills to carry it out. 

For the first time, Daniel writes a letter and sends it north. 

Not even a week later, Sherman begins his march to the sea. Scarlett can’t stop screaming. 

༨

“What the fuck is that?” Daniel hisses, moving to tilt Tim’s face up towards the light. 

Tim draws back before Daniel can touch him, but the bruise on his cheek is so visible he doesn’t really need to anyway. 

Tim grins. There’s blood on his teeth from where he bit either his tongue or his cheek. “I’ve adopted a new constitution. Jackson didn’t like it much, ‘cause you see, it just so happens to abolish slavery.”

༨

Daniel’s given up on getting a reply when the envelope finally comes. 

He stares at the wax seal for a moment- the imprint of a certain ring bearing seal of the state of New York used to press it- before he breaks it, dumping the contents of the envelope out. 

Eleven notices of secession fall out onto the table, and Daniel smiles. 

༨

Richmond falls to the union, and Daniel already knows it's a matter of time before the rest of Virginia follows. 

༨

Lee surrenders, Elizabeth with him, and Jackson is _furious_. Not even a month later, Flora and Josh are both gone too. 

༨

“I’m not leaving without you!” Scarlett says incredulously, and Daniel tugs her close resting his chin on top of her head. 

“I have something to take care of,” Daniel says vaguely, thinking about the vague visions of a battle in the south, about the box of symbols still shoved under his bed. 

“Like what?” Scarlett says suspiciously, leaning back to look at his face.

Daniel shrugs, skipping to the half-thought out idea he’d had instead of the more questionable items on his to-do list. “...well, someone’s got to tell our dear Louisiana that it’s time to go back, right?”

Scarlett raises her eyebrows. “So it’s like _that_ now?”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell if you’re messing with me or not.” 

“...no?”

Scarlett just stares at him for a moment. “...Right.” She sighs long-sufferingly. “Fineeee. I’ll guess I’ll tell David and we’ll go on ahead.”

Daniel kisses her forehead. “I’ll see you, soon, alright? Keep an eye out for Tim.”

Scarlett hugs him for a moment. “I’ll see you in Philadelphia, okay?”

“See you in Philadelphia,” Daniel repeats, and then lets her go. 

༨

The war ends with him and Evangeline sitting with their feet dangling off a pier on the Mississippi river, setting fire to the greatest symbols of the Confederacy. 

They’d both felt it, when Jackson and Alfred both died, the heavy ache pressing on them so hard it was hard to breathe, but only time would see if Jackson would stay dead. 

Evangeline rips another paper from the constitution, folding it into a paper boat and presenting it to Daniel so he can light it with a match before she drops it down into the water below. 

“It stays between us, right?” Daniel asks, trying to make his own paper boat and failing. Evangeline tries to take it from him to fix but he just shakes his head and sets it alight and drops it. 

“What, the first-degree murder?” Evangeline teases. 

Daniel rolls his eyes. “I'm no lawyer, but it was _conspiracy_ to commit first degree at the _most_. They can’t prove we had anything to do with it.”

Evangeline snorts. “Yeah, it stays between us, I guess.”

She drops the last constitution paper boat into the river, and they both watch it burn to the waterline and sink. 

Daniel stands up and offers her a hand. “Coming?”

Evangeline just looks at him for a second before she places her hand in his daintily. “Sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so some notes:  
> -first, the title is from a poem by R.I.D. called "Resting Kitty's Ghost". It's about the Bystander Effect, and since this fic is primarily about Daniel growing out of his bystanderishness, I thought it was fitting. 
> 
> -Daniel (and most of the other originals) do have a lot of issues with the founding fathers by this time period, especially as they get older and realize how messed up some of the stuff that happened to them was. During the revolution, the originals did really look up to them but by this time they're starting to look back and become pretty angry. Especially with stuff like the "states-can't-vote-because-they're-not-real-people" thing. 
> 
> -Okay, so I don't picture Daniel or any of the southern babes as ever being overtly racist (Jackson is another thing), but that doesn't mean they didn't have privilege and some bias and probably did commit some microaggressions through the years, as did some of the northern states. Part of Daniel's arc here was meant to be him growing as a person, and that includes him actually looking at how he's being selfish and not helping the people he cares about. Daniel is a little self-centered at times, but he is typically a good person. I'm sorry if this did not come off well. 
> 
> -Pre-Civil War, Tim did use the last name Lovelace (which is also Daniel's, David's, and Scarlett's surname), but after he felt he was abandoned by the twins he changed it to Avery. Fun Fact 1: Kendall told the younger states that the reason Tim was Avery and not Lovelace now was because he brought dishonor to the family by not being a ginger. The Southern Sibs hate this joke very much. Fun Fact 2: Tim will take Kendall's surname (Finley) if they get married. 
> 
> -Evangeline and Daniel do kind of have a thing for a while after the Civil War, though Daniel is criminally oblivious about it. Seriously, Evangeline breaks it off and Daniel's response was "Wait, we were dating?" followed by "Oh that's probably why we're breaking up then." I promise he's smart in other things, just not relationships.
> 
> -Additionally, I'd like to point out that individually Evangeline and Daniel are neutral good and chaotic neutral respectively, but become lawful evil together somehow.  
> Like:  
> -Evangeline, alone: *pinterest DIYs, wedding planning, fancy tarot decks*  
> -Daniel, alone: *chemistry, pranks, harassing little siblings*  
> -Evangeline and Daniel together: *planning first degree murder*
> 
> -There was supposed to be a scene where Daniel gets a letter Jackson wrote him as part of his estate but it's not happy and I wanted to end this with relatively good vibes. 
> 
> - **Finally, this does replace Dum Spiro Spero, so if you want that you should probably download it before I delete it on Sunday! :)**


End file.
